President will meet new Republican senator who has taken over the seat following the death of her brother Lindsey Graham
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7m agoFormer pardon attorney slams Blanche nomination for AG: 'Do not degrade our justice system further'
2h agoTrump nominee to lead labor department faces senators in confirmation hearing
4h agoTrump to deliver primetime speech on election security
4h agoTrump to meet Darline Graham at White House later today
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Donald Trump is due to meet Darline Graham - the sister of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, who was sworn in to temporarily fill his Senate seat – later today.
The president will meet with the new senator, just five days after her brother’s sudden death, in the Oval Office at 9.30am local time. Graham was appointed on Tuesday by Henry McMaster, South Carolina’s governor, to fill the remainder of her brother Lindsey’s current term.
Lindsey died on Saturday night, aged 71, after what his office called a “brief and sudden illness”. The chief medical examiner then preliminarily ruled on Sunday that he died of aortic dissection due to cardiovascular disease. With the backing of Trump, Darline was swiftly appointed to serve the remaining months of his Senate term, which ends on 3 January.
In brief remarks at a press conference on Monday, Darline said it was an “honor” to replace her older brother – who became her legal guardian after their parents died when she was a girl – in the Senate. She said he had always been there for her and vowed: “Now, I will be there for him.”
“I promise to work hard over the next several months to support the president and carry forward the efforts of my brother on behalf of the citizens of South Carolina and the United States,” she said. “I think this is what Lindsey would have wanted, and I plan to honor him in this way.”
At the time of his death, Graham was seeking a fifth Senate term, having won the Republican nomination only last month. The state GOP will hold a separate special election on 11 August to choose a new Senate nominee, who will face off against Democrat Annie Andrews in the November midterms.
The US president is scheduled to meet the El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele, at 11am local time, also in the Oval Office.
103 House Democrats voted to cut military aid to Israel as accusations that Israel’s government carried out a genocide in Gaza are gaining more traction in the party.
Two of Donald Trump’s nominees for powerful positions, Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton, buckled under pressure during their confirmations hearings. Blanche, the acting attorney general, described himself as Trump’s lawyer, before correcting himself. Clayton, the would-be national intelligence director, refused to say who won the 2020 election when asked by the senator Jon Ossoff.
Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna, who wrote the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law requiring the release of investigative files on the late child sexual abuse offender Jeffrey Epstein, introduced a sequel that would allow state officials, victims and members of Congress to sue the attorney general over withheld records.
In an interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, JD Vance discounted the conspiracy theory that Trump’s long association with Epstein had been used by Israel to blackmail the president into attacking Iran.
The treasury department announced on Wednesday that the US Mint has started producing a new commemorative $1 coin featuring Donald Trump as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration.
Speaking in front of senators on the judiciary committee today, Liz Oyer blasted Todd Blanche’s Wednesday testimony.
“I declined to rubber stamp a political favor for a friend of the president, and it cost me my job,” the former US pardon attorney told lawmakers about her firing after she refused to recommend restoring the firearm rights to actor and Trump-ally Mel Gibson, who was previously convicted of domestic violence.
Trump’s nominee to lead the justice department said that Oyer’s reccommendation last year did not lead to her termination. “The decisions that she had made as pardon attorney in the weeks and months leading up to the end of President Biden’s term were completely inconsistent with President Trump’s authority,” Blanche insisted.
Today, Oyer said that the acting attorney general’s comments were “provably false”.
“His claim that it had nothing to do with the concerns I raised is contradicted by documents and evidence,” she added.
Oyer urged senators to not “degrade our justice system further” by promoting Blanche.
“To the American public, it looks like Mr Blanche is running the DoJ as Donald Trump’s personal law firm,” she said. “He is using law enforcement powers to pursue petty grudges harbored by the president. These pointless vendettas are wasting our scarce resources and destroying DoJ’s credibility.”
The second day of Todd Blanche’s confirmation hearing to be the next attorney general has begun.
Today, we’ll hear from several expert witnesses about Blanche’s ability to serve as the nation’s top prosecutor. Dani Bensky, a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, is among those speaking, along with Liz Oyer – the former US pardon attorney who says she was fired after Donald Trump returned to office last year because she refused to recommend restoring firearm rights to Mel Gibson, the actor and prominent presidential ally who received probation for a 2011 domestic‑violence conviction.
The average price of diesel fuel in the US has increased again to more than $5 a gallon, according to the AAA, and the average price of gas is almost $4, returning to their highs before the June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
It’s a reminder to consumers and truckers of the costs of the Iran war and the unpredictable rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran. A year ago today, the AAA says, the average price for a gallon of diesel was $3.72, almost a dollar and a quarter less than it is now.
The renewed diplomatic uncertainty and new US and Iranian airstrikes are driving prices higher both at the pump and on the international wholesale markets.
The price of a barrel of oil stands at about $81. That’s still down from the highs during the most intense part of Trump’s war in Iran but wholesale prices recently have been driven by erratic news from the White House.
At 10am ET, Keith Sonderling will face lawmakers on the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee for his confirmation hearing to be the new labor secretary.
A reminder that the former department head, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, resigned in April after a series of misconduct allegations including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking on the job.
Sonderling has been serving as acting labor secretary since Chavez-DeRemer stepped down, a role he took on after being confirmed as deputy secretary in March 2025.
Also today, we’ll hear from press secretary Karoline Leavitt at 1pm ET. She will hold her first briefing since returning from parental leave earlier this year.
Donald Trump is in Washington today. His 9.30am ET meeting with Darline Graham, the sister of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham, will be closed to the press. His 11am ET meeting with Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who has developed a strong relationship with the Trump White House, won’t be open to reporters either. We’ll let you know if the guidance on either of these change and bring you the latest lines.
At 9pm ET we’ll be covering the president’s televised address to the nation, which will be broadcast from the East Room.
Donald Trump said Wednesday Iran had agreed to release an American citizen who has been “wrongfully detained” since December 2024.
“She is now safely outside of Iran, and in good condition,” Trump wrote on social media, without naming the woman. “The United States of America appreciates this gesture of Goodwill by Iran!”
Trump’s announcement came as the US launched fresh strikes on Iran. The woman is Dena Karari, a dual American and Iranian citizen, her lawyer Jared Genser announced on social media.
Genser said that he was “excited to report” that Karari, who was banned from leaving Iran after visiting her family in 2024, “is now safe and traveling back to the United States”.
“This would not have happened but for the extraordinary and relentless efforts” of the president, he added.
Critics say the Trump administration acted under the “cover of darkness” to replace an exhibit exploring the lives of nine enslaved people who lived at George Washington’s Philadelphia home with a version that is overly sympathetic to enslavers and that whitewashes the country’s origins.
The installation of new information panels followed a six-month fight between the city of Philadelphia and the Trump administration over an enslavement memorial at the former home of Washington and John Adams.
The National Park Service (NPS) removed the original panels on 22 January 2026 to conform with Trump’s executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” issued on 27 March 2025. After the city of Philadelphia filed a lawsuit against the federal government, Judge Cynthia M Rufe ordered the original panels to be reinstated on 16 February. NPS then reinstalled half of the exhibit, and the site remained in limbo for several months. The federal government appealed to the US third circuit, which ruled in mid-June that the exhibit could be replaced. On 3 July, a three-judge panel declared that the Trump administration could install new panels.
By the early morning of 15 July, the NPS had replaced the original exhibit – which told the story of the nine enslaved people who served George and Martha Washington in the 1790s, when the US capital temporarily moved to Philadelphia – with new panels the Trump administration contends gives a fuller picture of the nation’s origins.
“Overnight, under the cover of darkness, the federal government removed panels at the President’s House that told a thorough history of Philadelphia,” said Cherelle L Parker, the city’s mayor, in a statement. “It was allowed to do this by the decision of the federal court, but that it did so at night shows it understands this action is shameful, that it violates community trust.”
Brazil has condemned the US decision to impose 25% tariffs on certain Brazilian products, after the Trump administration found a range of what it deemed unfair trade practices by the South American country.
“The Brazilian government repudiates the decision announced today by the United States government regarding the imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Brazilian products,” the office of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a statement on X, denying it had engaged in unfair trade practices.
The tariffs, which were first proposed last month, will take effect on 22 July. The order exempts some goods not produced in the US or that officials worry would disrupt supply chains. They include coffee, beef, oranges and orange juice, some oil and gas energy products and aerospace parts and components.
The office of the US trade representative said it concluded after a year-long investigation that Brazil had a range of unfair trade practices, including lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other practices seen as unreasonable and unfair.
The US, however, has had a goods trade surplus with Brazil for years.
Friedrich Merz has warned Donald Trump’s administration against interfering in German elections after the US state department announced a scheme to fund Maga-aligned causes in Europe.
The German chancellor was responding to a US initiative offering grants of up to $3m (£2.2m) for European charities, thinktanks and individuals.
The funding will be for those seeking to “address national sovereignty, migration, censorship and lawfare challenges in line with shared political philosophy, law and our common western civilizational heritage”.
Amid growing concerns that the US is seeking to directly influence European politics, Merz said he did not want the US to interfere in German state elections in September.
“For our part, we do not interfere in American elections,” he told a press conference on Wednesday. “Conversely, I do not want the American government or institutions close to the government to interfere in German elections.”
Former US officials say the grant scheme is part of a months-long effort by the state department to repurpose US government funds to support far-right groups and potentially political parties in Europe.
Donald Trump plans to deliver a primetime speech today focused on election security, bringing renewed attention to his long-running complaints about voting systems and election administration.
The White House was deciding whether the president’s remarks would include the disclosure of sensitive intelligence related to China’s intention or ability to interfere in the 2020 US election, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing four sources.
Some Trump officials worried the information could be misleading, sources said. Trump has spent years sowing doubts about electoral outcomes, falsely asserting that his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.
He has also advanced other false claims, including that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud, voting machines are vulnerable and non-citizen voting is widespread.
“As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what president Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said. “The truth is, nobody knows yet what president Trump will ultimately say.”
US politics live with Shrai Popat
